Different Ways To Organize Your Bookshelves

Lately, I’ve been moving my books around because I’m not entirely happy with the way they’re displayed on my shelves. But I don’t know how I want to rearrange them exactly, so I decided to write a blog post about different ways you can organize your bookshelves.

By alphabetical.

Do the author’s last name or first if you’re so inclined. You might even decide to go organize according to the titles of each book. It’s up to you.

By colour.

Ombré. Rainbow. The possibilities are endless.

By genre.

Have one shelf for fantasy, one for mystery, etc. This is a good way to see what you like or dislike.

By height.

Shelves look more uniform when books are the same size. This is a fact of life. My heart breaks when I buy a novel that doesn’t fit in with the others.

By love.

Have your favourite books on one shelf. You can play favourites with novels. That’s totally ethical.

By status.

What you’ve read, what you’re currently reading, what you want to read. I have a shelf for all the books I own but haven’t read yet. Without fail, I’ll read a few novels on my to-be-read shelf only to buy many more. I almost always enable my own addiction.

By story.

Is it a standalone? A series? Also consider grouping books by the same author together. Because why not?

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12 thoughts on “Different Ways To Organize Your Bookshelves”

I tried doing colour once but it didn’t work for two reasons: my shelves were homemade and they are all different heights, so some books didn’t fit in their respective colour space, and some of my series’ were split up because the spines were a different colour and that drove me cuckoo lol! So I arranged them by height instead.

Now I’ve got new bookcases though, and they are all arranged in genre and alphabetically 🙂

It’s always a work in progress, but I separate chiefly by genre, and keep books I’m actively using separated according to reading or writing projects. Generally it works, though it’s not always tidy. 😟 I also watch for books I can give to other people or organizations. The academic life is like having a non-stop spigot of water flowing through our house though both of us are retired. Our babies! 😊